I am not a paranoid type. I don't believe in conspiracies. But, if there is a pattern. If you are a big donar to Democrats, you get favors. GE for example. And GM and Chrysler. If you are tied to Republicans, you get a different kind of attention from the government.

Another example? When Wisconsin turned down the Hiawatha extension to Madison, the Federal funds were divided up to other rail projects. Fine, makes sense. Wisconsin asked for some of the money to be used to bolster the existing Hiawatha line.

Obama said no, but then gave some of the money to Minnesota, for a project that will never occur (the Mpls - Duluth proposal). Trust me, there is no way that line will ever get built, but Obama sent them money anyway as a big FU to Governor Walker.

Never mind ulterior motives, the ostensible motives for enforcement are blatantly protectionist in favor of India.

I'd say Obama's got a festering PR problem on many fronts.

From the Gibson press release:

The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.)

I long ago gave up on correcting people about "Godwin's Law", but since it's been mentioned several times, and since I have little to do now that NYC is completely closed... Godwin's Law does not say anything about a discussion being ended by a reference to Nazi Germany. It merely posits that: "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1". That's it! It was merely a humorous insight about internet discussions and probability, made over 20 years ago. It's completely neutral as to whether such references are good or bad, and says nothing about discussions being ended by such comparisons. The misapplication and misunderstanding of this "law" is ridiculous; there is nothing inherently wrong with making comparisons or observations about something as historically important as Nazi Germany.Thank you.

It's a violation of the Lacy Act to import this wood, if it's not finished before it's shipped?

Can any of you ever-so-smart liberal lawyerly types explain this? You don't even have to defend it; just explain it.

There's a link to an article about a businesswoman who was sentenced to 2 years in federal prison because she imported lobsters in clear plastic bags; and apparently Honduran law forbade this, at some point in the past. So she was sentenced to prison by an American court.

Until I read the earlier Althouse link re Gibson I didn't realize that it was possible to buy the stuff from illegal sources. That's probably a lot less expensive that the route I (and maybe Martin) took. Legal Ebony ain't cheap.

Most human frailties are common to Democrats and Republicans. One can find notable examples of venality among all races, religions, and political persuasions. I suppose one can argue that people on the left are more apt to sexually abuse their children, but most other vices appear to be distributed at random throughout the populace.....Where liberals surpass all others, however, is their ability to spin the vices of their opponents into the works of King Beelzebub on his high throne and their own shortcomings into the stuff of our common clay. The optics of this look very bad, but optics only apply to the sighted. Sure, there will be a segment on Fox News, but who really watches For News. The major networks will find that the Big Story is Obama's masterful handling of the Libyan crisis. Any attempt to draw the public's attention away from the Big Story is obfuscatory at best and more likely racist.....Has there ever been a group of people more self righteous about their own paltry, withered virtues than the liberals of our era?

The Feds crack down on your guitar company? Fine. Announce that you're halting guitar production (to be resumed when producers are not penalized for their productivity). Hell, don't even announce it. Just quietly go on strike.

They are not mutually exclusive and neither is skeptisism about vast right/left wing conspiracies and the fact that people conspire to advance themselves, and that may mean running over those that get in the way...otherwise known as the loyal opposition.

Gibson is important to Nashville. I told my 16-year-old daughter, who is performing her first show just blocks from the Gibson factory on Saturday, about the raid. Her response: "Are you serious? That's so Stalin." She was shocked and horrified. I don't think Obama is going to retain many fans in the 15-25 group around here after this.

I'm somewhat afraid to say this but I have some rosewood pen blanks for woodturning that I bought from the company at the link. I hope garbage, j or one of those other liberal fascist can't figure out who I am and where I live and turn me in.

The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.)

I think the key here is the search warrant.

I am assuming, Federal agents don't raid a private business without a search warrnet. It's not as though they are in hot felony pursuit of ebony.

So they needed to present the warrant. And to get the warrant, they had to make representations that a Fedral law had been broken and that there was evidence at the warrant location, so:

1. what law?2. who made the claim?3. which judge granted it?4. what does the judge think of enforcing Indian law without a request from India?5. did the US attorney or the FBI misrepresent the circumstances?

I want to thank everyone who voted in this administration with the notion what it might be good for the country to see if this socialism thing would work and if not, hopefully guide the country back to pretty much where it was going in the first place.

I hope you're proud of your political experiment. This ain't a lab, it's real life.

If it was a lab, the analogy would be having the 2008 experimenters choose to try making gold from lead. We just need to try it one more time to make sure it doesn't work,...and we're gonna spend all of our grant money to do it. It's the only way to know for sure.

I always enjoy seeing it cited. I have known Mike (Godwin) for almost 20 years now, since he was new as counsel for the EFF. Not well, but have been out drinking with him on occasion, esp. back in the mid-1990s, when he would come back to Austin to speak at cyer-law conferences. And, he is on the listserv for the IP committee I chair.

I do mention his law to him when I talk to him, which is rare any more. Some way to get fame. But, better than many.

I think that what everyone needs to remember here is that this is not a first, but rather, a part of a pattern. For example, letting the black panthers off after they had stipulated to guilt.

Plus, the same DoJ and AG are stonewalling like crazy over the gunwalker/Fast and Furious scandal, lying before Congress, etc. And, it appears that AZ wasn't alone there, as the scandal seems to be extending into NM and TX. Oh, and then they promoted three of the managers involved a week or two ago - either to keep them quiet or to reward them for it.

@bagoh20: I am a Martin player myself, but they don't have any of my money because I bought mine (long before politics entered into it) second-hand. My advice is, play what you like, and don't let politics affect that choice. If you like Martin, and you don't want to send them money, there's a huge secondary market in Martin guitars, and most people think the older ones are better anyway. If you want to send Gibson money, you can do it without compromising your artistic preference. (This is by no means a knock on Gibson, by the way. They make fine guitars, too, and I would advise any liberal who liked one to buy it.) I appreciate wanting to do something for a company that just got mistreated, but please, don't let's start with politically correct guitars.

It's not a coincidence. That does not mean that Obama ordered the raid, or anything like that, but it's a 100% certainty that the feds check the politics and political affiliations of the people they raid before they go through the door. They would not raid a big Dem donor without lots of checking at higher levels. They would be far less hesitant with a Republican.

So the feds raid them in 2011 and it must have been at the direction of Obama and his operatives.

When the feds raided them in late 2009 I guess it was also at the explicit direction of Obama and his operatives.

The 2009 raid probably took place only after a year or so of intelligence and evidence gathering which would have placed the start of the operation during W's tenure.

Gibson has been working with the Rainforest Alliance to promote sustainable harvesting of a variety of exotic woods since the late 1990's.

I have no idea if Gibson was in fact trying to skirt the law in order to import the woods that were the subject of the 2009 and 2011 raids or if they just got caught up in some bad paperwork. We'll have to wait and see.

Too bad so many folks here seem to think laws trying to regulate trade in many exotic species of wood (and other species of flora and fauna) in order to try and promote a sustainable harvest of same are "stupid".

I guess most of you all think we should just go ahead and clearcut all those exotic trees in all corners of the globe just like we should just go ahead and suck all the bluefin tuna out of the ocean.

The day the next Republican president is sworn in there needs to be fully armed no knock swat team raids on the homes of every left-wing musician in the country in order to seize any Gibson guitars that might be illegal under Indian law. And should any "contraband" be found in plain sight....well, that would be icing on the cake.

They can start with Springsteen (he recorded some of the love letter to Obama "Working on a Dream" record on an acoustic Gibson J-200) just so he can experience what real oppression feels like, not the phony GWB as Hitler meme common to the left-wing fever swamp for the last ten years.

If they are Indian laws, are we sure that it's terrible for our gov to enforce violators?

I wonder if trade agreements require as much.

For example I would hope that the Chinese gov had the authority to enforce our patent laws against Chinese pirates.*

*[Obviously when the Chinese gov is itself stealing and using the intellectual property of our companies it's rather naive to expect them to clamp down on pirates. But, you'd think/hope that they'd at least be allowed to (and ideally, obligated to) do so. Or else, what's the point of free trade, when it's free-ride trade for one side?]

Could you get it cleaned up tonight? I have a friend at Moveon who knows a girl who is a booty call for a guy who donated to the Obama campaign. He's gonna make some calls, and there should be someone stopping by tomorrow to pick up that contraband you been strumming.

It's gonna sound nice with my Pit Bulls' accompaniment. They love to sing to the sound of vintage tropical wood.

And thanks for understanding the cost of being on the wrong side of history. Hope & Change to you, my brother.

There are many luthiers around this country building excellent guitars. Ther are many "boutique" type guitar builders of various size and fame. They ALL use exotic woods of one type or another. Ebony is used quite often as fretboard material.One does have to take into consideration that something could be amiss with Gibson getting picked on and the owner of Gibson being a conservative.

I have a Guild D-25 acoustic with Ebony fretboard and a Gibson ES 335 with Ebony fretboard. I am wondering if I should grow eyes in the back of my head.

Rejoice, Obama supporters, there's your vote at work. And you can't say you didn't know it would affect innocent people, because "the Chicago way" - and his willingness to use it - were well-known before you put Obami in office.

So - how's it feel to have radically transformed the country into a gangster paradise? Swell. Enjoy it, y'all:

The blow-back is gonna be AWESOME.

P.S.

When that time comes, please keep all pleas for reason to yourselves, as we have learned our lesson and know you're only joking. Thank you. See you in 2012.

I've been suggesting that to doctors, regarding quackery, for some time now but they ain't biting. Westerners, generally, are weird - demanding everything fall apart before they're compelled to act. Probably because those in a position to do something are the most sheltered from the results of their inaction.

The really important issue here is, why are such infractions the subject of armed raids, criminal penalties etc. Eric Schie at Classical Values wrote in depth about the criminalization of wood possession a few years back, and he has also addressed the Gibson raid.

The raids were done by bureaucratic fiat, not as legal actions. Gibson has no recourse other than to sue the Feds to get its confiscated wood back - it's guilty until it proves itself innocent.

Curiously, the second raid occurred on the day Gibson was to appear in the court trying its lawsuit, to give evidence of its innocence. It appears that the Feds are moving to suspend that trial too.

So where's Gibson's due process of law? Under Obama bureaucracy, it seems to be eclipsed. So many administrators, so many arbitrary unappealable actions by a government of men, or women, or in-betweens. This hasn't been the norm since the Roosevelt administration introduced it during the 1930s.